The woman at the hospital started telling me about a friend who had just given birth to a baby without a covering over its brain. The child’s father worked [at the cannery] and the thing that concerned her was that both she and the parents concerned were all aware of other babies with the same condition born to fathers working at the cannery…My level of concern went up a few months later when I was in the local hospital having my second baby. The lady next to me was distressed as she had just given birth to a baby with a serious birth defect and during our talk she told me that her husband worked at the cannery. Later on, I spoke with my mother who had been a receptionist at the hospital for 11 years. She told me that to her, the number of babies born with cleft palates and other deformities seemed inordinately high but she had nothing else to compare her observations with. She was responsible for typing patients’ files so she had a fair idea of what was going on. *** Sheffield Tasmania 1991.
The woman at the hospital started telling me about a friend who had just given birth to a baby without a covering over its brain. The child’s father worked [at the cannery] and the thing that concerned her was that both she and the parents concerned were all aware of other babies with the same condition born to fathers working at the cannery…My level of concern went up a few months later when I was in the local hospital having my second baby. The lady next to me was distressed as she had just given birth to a baby with a serious birth defect and during our talk she told me that her husband worked at the cannery. Later on, I spoke with my mother who had been a receptionist at the hospital for 11 years. She told me that to her, the number of babies born with cleft palates and other deformities seemed inordinately high but she had nothing else to compare her observations with. She was responsible for typing patients’ files so she had a fair idea of what was going on. Jo Eastern Sheffield Tasmania 1991.